Quote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
To be sure, you could have achieved the same result with queue jumper and traffic metering if necessary at choke point, and as pointed by HumnaTransit those choke point are rather an incredible opportunity to promote transit use, than an impediment (see Lion Bridge and George Massey)
Roads construction are primarily for car usage, and because it is in competition with transit, they don't help it at all. Instead one could say that they tend to promote more sprawling making transit service less efficient
that is certainly a good thing , and Golden Ears is how the thing should be done (market priced bridge)
Also, note Lezard, this Golden Ears bridge is the single most important Translink investment: near to $1Billion, order of magnitude more than the Translink share in the Canada line, and it is this investment alone mostly which is limiting the Translink capacity to borrow money for new project
(no matter people say it will pay for itself, banks will don't lend to you if you are above a certain debt/revenue ratio...): have you noticed how this bridge is not in Vancouver?
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About the first point, queue jumping would not have solved the need for the Coast meridian Overpass, for it creates a far more direct (faster) route for bus service from the northern area of PoCo to the southern area of PoCo, because it travels over a 500 meter wide rail yard that cuts the city in half. The alternative routes are both far to its sides and congested to the point where simple queue jumping would not have been a cheep alternative (the Mary Hill is backed up at ever traffic light during the rush hours, so an entire third lane would need to be constructed, very expensive, especially since it would have meant the reconstructing of the CP underpass. On the other side, the Shaughnessy underpass (again, CN) is only 2 lanes wide (one in each direction) and again, even with queue jumper lanes, would add several minutes (maybe even 10) on any cross regional bus trip.
Here is a map of the area:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=49.258451,-122.756209&spn=0.026104,0.057077&t=h&z=15
You will see how the new overpass is much more direct link for many areas of the two sides of the city, and was needed (essentially it is the continuation of a normal street grid).
As for the Pitt River Bridge, those bridges needed to be replaced! First of all, even with the HOV lane (which acted much like a queue jumper for buses) buses would still be delayed up to 20 minutes merging two lanes over during counter flow and idling on the bridge deck for the by pass traffic light (now gone)
Also, the bridges were swing bridges, and it would take up to 30 minutes for the bridges to swing open, allow the boat traffic to pass, and then close again. That caused severe delays for buses and motorists alike (and even cyclists)
Also, I remember a few times when the counter flow system was out (due to power outages) the delays to get over the bridge were insane. Once during a bridge power outage (this is no exaggeration) it took me over 2 hours of waiting in traffic to get over the bridge. In fact, the entire street grid on the Pitt Meadows side was gridlock all the way to 216th in Maple Ridge! No queue jumping lanes were helping buses that day!
So yes, some road expansion projects are necessary to more directly link regions and to replace poorly designed infrastructure.
As for the second point I highlighted in your post, what does it mean? hehehehe
Sorry to be so off topic, but we are talking about projects built in Metro Vancouver and how it all relates back to transit and what project deserves priority next.
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